jf_moran49

It is just poor planning for the delivering of the reboot of "Mad About You" that the series will only be available via a limited cable television service to which many people may not even have a chance to subscribe, to say nothing of the fact (but I shall) that it would cost an additional $100+ to subscribe to this Spectrum service, on top of whatever other utility bills a person may already have, including one's already-established cable TV service.

Also, the "Mad About You" reboot is, out of the gate, going to have an older demographic viewing it. So it really doesn't require any more impediments to further limit its viewership. Just ask the producers and entertainers who were involved in the miserable failure that was the "Murphy Brown" reboot, about how successful older viewers watching older actors may be. But that reboot at least had going for it that it aired on an over-the-air (OTA) broadcast TV network, namely CBS.

So my advice to fans of "Mad About You" who would really wish to watch the reboot but can't or won't shelve out $100+ per month to do so, is to wait until episodes are available on a DVD set, assuming that happens, which would make sense for the older fans of the series, that it also be available in a 20th Century viewing format. Either that or link up with some viewer, perhaps via a Craigslist ad (which still exits for non-adult personals), who has a Spectrum subscription and trade with that person from your own video collection in exchange for the person recording (with a DVR device or software) the 12 episodes of Season 8 of "Mad About You." It is stil perfectly legal to record off-air with a DVR or VCR (if one still has one of those antiquated 20th Century video-recording devices) for personal use, so long as no profit is being obtained for video. That is why a fair trade of one video for another video is allowed, but paying for a DVR/VCR recording to another person is not.

Lastly, of course the logical question is why the original distributor of "Mad About You" would not wish to also air its reboot? And unless I am mistaken, "The Peacock Network" isn't exactly fighting off its viewers with sticks these days, so many years is it now removed from its heyday of "Must See" viewing, which involved such other bygone series' as "Cheers," "Seinfeld," "Frasier" and "Friends." And given the relative success of the "Will & Grace" reboot, one would think NBC might have at least considered taking a chance on another of its past successful series'. The fact NBC passed on a "Mad About You" reboot means probably it couldn't or wouldn't meet the exorbitant salary demands of Paul Reiser and/or Helen Hunt, and also possibly that NBC feared the viewer demographic would skew too old and too thin to warrant the investment. NBC may also have looked upon the failure of Reiser's eponymous 2011 NBC series as a barometer of how the fan base would be for even a "Mad About You" reboot.

It has been awhile since the original series was widely available in broadcast syndication. Still, if old fans were not willing to shelve out extra $$ to see older-but-proven episodes of a favorite TV series on a streaming platform (such as Hulu or Netflix), unlikely those fans would be willing to pay extra funds for an added cable TV bill either to see untried new episodes of that once-favorite series. So I guess it remains to be seen just how mad about "Mad About You" its old fans really are.

I have never seen this television series inspired by the non-fiction book allegedly authored by 35th President of the United States of America John F. Kennedy. Although I intend to search for some episodes of the TV series among video collectors. But I have read enough about the Kennedy political family of Massachusetts to know research has been done to show President Kennedy never actually authored the book "Profiles in Courage," for which his father, Joseph P. Kennedy, the former Ambassador to Great Britain and the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, helped to obtain for his second eldest son a coveted Pulitzer Prize.

The research shows the book was actually authored by Kennedy aide and speechwriter Theodore Sorensen (who was paid for his services), with assistance from Jacqueline Kennedy's history professor at Georgetown University, Jules David. in fact, so well-known was Kennedy having utilized the services of a ghostwriter for which he fraudulently received the 1957 Pulitzer of Letters and Drama in Autobiography and Biography that an anecdote circulated about the affair, to wit, "I wish that Kennedy had a little less profile and more courage," later revealed to have been made by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Actually, the first television series (in 1975) with two, recurring homosexual male characters ("George" & "Gordon") was the Norman Lear-produced "Hot L Baltimore." The gay men resided at the titled locale. This series was based on an off-Broadway play by Lanford Wilson which starred Conchata Ferrell (best known as "Berta" on the CBS-TV sitcom "Two & A Half Men") as the scene-stealing prostitute "April." Norman Lear caught Ferrell in the play and then came up with a TV version of the production, in which Ferrell re-created her off-Broadway role.

"Hot L Baltimore" also starred James Cromwell, who was better known as "Jerome 'Stretch' Cunningham," best workplace (the loading dock, before "Archie" bought "Kelsey's Bar") friend of "Archie Bunker" on the sitcom "All in the Family," and best known as that guy in the "Babe" pig movies.

Coincidentally (or not), Ferrell would also play "Rita Valdez" in the episode of Lear's "Maude" that said goodbye to housekeeper "Florida Evans," when the character and its star (Esther Rolle) were spun-off into "Good Times." Ferrell's "Valdez" was a funny and flippant Spanish-speaking job applicant for the position in which "Maude" ultimately chose the feisty, booze-swilling "Mrs. Nell Naugatuck" (played by the terrific Hermione Baddeley).

And the first TV series to feature a "gay" male as a regular, starring character was, indeed, NBC-TV's "Love, Sidney," which starred Tony Randall and Swoosie Kurtz. The pilot of the series was the film "Sidney Shorr: A Girl's Best Friend," which clearly mentioned the sexual orientation of the title character, while in the series that fact was assumed but never mentioned.

Kurtz didn't portray "Laurie Morgan" in the pilot film. That role in the film was played by Lorna Patterson, whose best-known role was as the title character (originated in the film by Goldie Hawn) in the TV version of "Private Benjamin." And the spelling of the surname of the lead character in "Love, Sidney" was changed from "Shorr" to "Shore," perhaps to further create a differentiation between film pilot and series, thus providing a claim to advertisers the two were different characters.

But, come on, we all know Paul Lynde was having himself a fabulous time, whether sitting in the center square trading barbs with Peter Marshall on "The Hollywood Squares," or playing "Uncle Arthur" in the long-running ABC-TV sitcom "Bewitched." As "Uncle Arthur" really was a semi-recurring character, I suppose he may be considered TV's first continuing gay male character. Does it always have to be stated to be so? Aren't some characters' natures implicit? And if one raises the issue of subtext, "Bewitched" and homosexuality were inextricably linked; the witch keeping her supernatural powers a secret from all but one mortal (the Down-Low or gay-friendly "Darrin"), symbolic of many homosexuals (then) remaining in the closet with most heterosexuals.

So, Norman Lear ("Hot L Baltimore"), Witt-Thomas-Harris ("SOAP"), and George Eckstein ("Love, Sidney,"), you may all defer to Sol Saks and William Asher (and Elizabeth Montgomery), as "Bewitched," thanks to "Uncle Arthur," may be considered the first TV series with a regular gay character.

This is also not forgetting Dick Sargent (the second "Darrin Stephens"), Maurice Evans (who played the dad of "Samantha Stephens," and was also a renowned Shakespearean stage actor--a lot of 'em are "light-in-the-loafers," must be those tights), and Lynde, were all homosexual males in real life, and the possibility Agnes Moorhead ("Endora," the mother of "Samantha") was a closeted lesbian (she was coy when specifically asked her orientation). But even in her role on "Bewitched," you just know "Endora" had to be a great fag hag.

The first made-for-TV film with gay characters, at least that I recall watching, was "That Certain Summer," which starred Hal Holbrook and Martin Sheen as the gay couple, Scott Jacoby as the Holbrook character's son, and Hope Lang as Holbrook's character's estranged wife. This film debuted on November 1. 1972 as an "ABC Movie of the Week." Do you remember when the broadcast television networks aired originally-produced films on a regular basis?

In conclusion, "official" first television series with regular "gay" characters--"Hot L Baltimore" (debuted January 24, 1975); figurative first TV series with a regular "gay" character--"Bewitched" (1964), with Paul Lynde making his debut as "Uncle Arthur" in the October 14, 1965 episode "The Joker Is a Card." As country-western singer Collin Raye once sang, and stand-up comic Colin Quinn used to say, on the "Weekend Update" segment of "Saturday Night Live": "That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

Actually, monica.murray@nyumc.org, you've got it wrong. The soap you are describing in your comment above is not "Search For Tomorrow," but "The Secret Storm." That's the one which for many years featured story lines revolving around the "Ames" family.

"Search For Tomorrow" revolved mainly around the characters of "Joanne Gardner Barron Tate Reynolds Vincente Tourneur" (played the show's entire, 35-year run by Mary Stuart) and her good friends "The Bergmans"-- "Stu Bergman" (Larry Haines) and, for many years his wife, "Marge" (played by Melba Rae for 20+ years until her sudden, 1972 death).

However, both soaps were created by Roy Winsor.

To answer your question, Jada Rowland, who played "Amy Ames Rysdale Britton Kincaid" off and on for most of the two decades "The Secret Storm" aired (replaced in intermittent periods by other actresses, including the last time by the equally popular Lynne Adams, who played "Leslie Jackson Bauer Norris Bauer" on "The Guiding Light" for many years) is now a painter and illustrator.

After "Storm" was canceled in 1974, Rowland had another, long-running stint, as a character on NBC's "The Doctors."

Buddy Hart, who plays the role of "Tommy" in this film version of the popular Canadian, syndicated TV series, "The Littlest Hobo," also played the role of "Chester Anderson" on the first few seasons of "Leave It To Beaver."

Hart's "Chester" was the best-looking of "Wally Cleaver's" entourage of friends, which included the notorious weasel, "Eddie Haskell," the obese bully, "Clarence 'Lumpy' Rutherford," & nerdy "Tooey Brown."

In real life, Hart is also the son of actor John Hart, the second actor to portray "The Lone Ranger," in between the stints of Clayton Moore, who originated the role on TV and in films.

The younger Hart continued to play supporting roles in films, his last (of any notoriety, at least) being 1969's musical "Sweet Charity," which starred Shirley MacLaine, directed by Bob Fosse. His show business resume mysteriously ends with that project--now almost 40 years ago--and he was never in the casts of either the "Leave It To Beaver" TV reunion film, "Still The Beaver," nor of its spin-off series'--"Still The Beaver" and "The New Leave It To Beaver," which aired on The Disney Channel and SuperStation TBS, respectively.

I generally agree with the other poster's comments here, but as one who grew up in the relative same era in which the series' story lines existed, who saw the series in first-run syndication, may view it from a slightly different perspective.

"tvpdean's" comment that Brian Keith's character on "Family Affair" was always "railing against fate," implying he was somehow brash or hard-nosed with his juvenile charges, strikes me as way off base. In fact, what was so appealing & endearing about Keith's portrayal of engineer/playboy "Uncle Bill (Davis)" was that he WAS a "tough guy" who was very gentle and reasonable with his two nieces and nephew, albeit with the help of his manservants, "Giles French" (and, briefly, "Niles French"). Not that Keith's character was above sometimes shouting in frustration, but that's only human in any situation. Keith's "Bill Davis" was a helluva lot more realistic than Forsythe's "Bentley Gregg" on this series, though actually Forsythe would play the sort of character "tvpdean" implies Forsythe was on this series in another, later sitcom, "To Rome With Love," which was produced by Don Fedderson, the same guy who created "Family Affair" and "My Three Sons" (and who also produced Betty White's first series, "Life With Elizabeth").

Also, it was certainly not "apparent" this series' family lived in an Eastern or Midwestern city. What with "Gregg" running around with all sorts of starlets and their driving in an open convertible all the time (as "Mike Tee Vee" so duly noted), I'd say it was rather suspiciously like sunny, Southern California. It would also make sense that it would be West Coast, where in those days there was much more an influx of Asian persons, such as houseboy "Peter Tong," than on the East coast or in the Midwest.

"tvpdean's" assertion this series was an ancestor of single father figure dating shows is right on the mark, however, and "The Courtship Of Eddie's Father" is a good analogy, although Bill Bixby's character on that show was an actual father, not an uncle (as Forsythe is here); and also, Bixby's character was a widower, whereas Forsythe's "Gregg" was, presumably, never married. But "Bentley Gregg" and Bixby's "Tom Corbett" (not to be confused with "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet") did have one, other trait in common--Asian servants; the aforementioned "Peter" on "Bachelor Father" & "Mrs. Livingston" as housekeeper to "Mr. Eddie's Father" (and babysitter/governess to master "Eddie" himself).

So actually, "Bachelor Father" has much more in common with "Family Affair"--a single uncle, with a manservant of foreign ethnicity, who adopted his niece and is leading an active romantic life. Although, in the later years of "Family Affair," Keith's "Uncle Bill" became much more domestic, less the globe-trotting playboy (except when his jobs took him out of NYC).

By the way--Noreen Corcoran, who played "Kelly" on this series, was part of a large family of kid actors that included Disney ensemble regular Kevin Corcoran ("Moochie" on the "Spin & Marty" episodes of "The Mickey Mouse Club," Tommy Kirk's younger brother in "Old Yeller" & "The Shaggy Dog," and himself star of Disney's circus boy film, "Toby Tyler." And since I brought him up, Sebastian Cabot was not, as commonly believed, British. Rather he was a Canadian citizen--which, I realize, would still make Cabot a British subject, but would hardly explain his British-sounding accent. I think that was "cultivated" for effect, much as William F. Buckley's upper crusty inflection.

The TV film "Sidney Shorr: A Girl's Best Friend" definitely did mention the fact that its titled character was homosexual. It's been so long since I have seen it, only saw it when first aired on NBC, but I distinctly recall it mentioned the main character's homosexuality very briefly and, as another poster has said, it was very understated and that was the only mention of it.

But once the property was picked up by NBC, the role of the little girl's ("Patti's") mother, "Laurie," re-cast with Swoosie Kurtz for the series "Love, Sidney," the fact of its main character's sexual orientation was never again mentioned, only implied by lifestyle--i.e., living alone as platonic best friend of single mother & "father figure" to her daughter. And anyway, the sex life of "Sidney" was irrelevant to the overall theme of the continuing story, which was the relationship between "Shorr," "Laurie" and "Patti." I do recall that it was a very sweet, very well-written film, very nicely played by Tony Randall (who was always excellent & added a touch of class to whatever work in which he appeared).

I will disagree with the previous poster, "jewel," about one aspect of her/his review of this film. The overall message on the film's concluding scene was not "Sidney, alone, heartbroken, amid the dozens & dozens of pictures," but rather--Sidney, again living solitary, but warmed by the many pictures sent him by his surrogate daughter, symbolic of the fact that they had remained in contact over the intervening passage of time. And so the film ended as it began, Sidney living alone, yes, but content and happy for the fact of having had this daughter figure brought into his life. In no way did the film end on a down note--to state otherwise is to have missed the point! It's all a matter of proper perspective and context, really.

"Ladies & Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones" (Directed by Rollin Binzer,1973)

Although I would perhaps include The Rolling Stones' performance in "The T.A.M.I. Show" along with this, that was a different era and line-up of the group, still including the musically-versatile band founder, Brian Jones, on guitar, dulcimer, mandolin, maracas, recorder and whatever else warranted his talents.

And although there are many great live or pseudo-live performances of the band, ranging from their half dozen or so appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" (the earliest of which rank with the aforementioned "T.A.M.I" showcase) to "Hullabaloo," to "Ready Steady Go!," to "Shindig!," and even a full-set, 1971 videotaped show at London's Marquee Club, where they got their start as a blues cover combo, one really cannot count these as full-feature, theatrical documents of the group. Nor can one, I suppose, count the initially British-only TV performance (since made commercially available from a color print, after the Stones reacquired it from The Who) of "The Rolling Stones' Rock & Roll Circus." And besides, although riveting, lead singer Mick Jagger was apparently higher than a cut-cord, helium balloon for that one!

But for a pure, near-cinema verite (conceding they rehearsed their music sets) concert film, you can't get any better than this, save for a front row seat at one of their gigs from either the 1972 or '75 tours, the latter of which was, sadly, not filmed (at least to general knowledge). That tour contained the infamous ride Jagger took on an inflatable phallus, musically just as tight, theatrically even more the spectacle, though not in support of as great a studio recording. This film, culled from footage at two Texas concerts in the summer of 1972, to promote their then-new Atlantic/Rolling Stones Records LP release, "Exile On Main Street," remains not only the best concert film of the band, but among the best, straight rock concert films ever!

I saw this film in a theater only once, in re-release on a 1980 double bill with the then-newly-released "Rock 'N' Roll High School," starring The Ramones, and it has to rank as one of the greatest double bills I have ever seen in a commercial theater--while away at college in Amherst, Massachusetts. One, the best celluloid document of a world-famous rock & roll band, in their prime and playing one of their best sets; the other, the best re-creation of a rock & roll drive-in movie, starring the world's most famous, two-chord garage band.

Of course, the theater in which I saw it didn't have the benefit of the quadraphonic sound included for the film's initial release, but was nevertheless an awesome experience to see larger-than-life images of Jagger and Keith Richards (with his streaked, rooster's mane shag) double-sucking the mike, the camera close up on Jagger in a blue jumpsuit one second, panning the stage to a shot of Mick Taylor on a lead solo or Bobby Keys blowing sax the next, or downstage, then back up to Jagger, shimmying the stage at the second show in a white jumpsuit!

"Dead Flowers," "Happy," "Sweet Virginia" and "Tumbling Dice" are high points, but it's all excellent, if only a little too short.

I don't know about the validity of information contained in a previously-posted review, that someone associated with the film's production said existing prints of this film were damaged? All I can say is that I saw what appeared to be an intact film in '80; have since acquired a bootleg VHS copy of it in the early '90s, which appears to be mostly there, though something seems weird about the very beginning of it versus how I recall from the theatrical screening. But that could also be just my impaired memory--like those notorious Twins of Glimmer, I too have done some chemical dabbling over these many years!

In any event, if you get a chance ever to see this on a big-screen--do yourself a favor and go see it! Also, you may try cruising the Web and/or eBay for an illegitimate DVD/VHS copy of the film--at least will get a sense of what all the fuss is about here. I think you'll find the superlatives justified.

The Stones are well past their prime these days, almost the equivalent of a very well-compensated, touring oldies act ("The Strolling Bones" as some have said), making records that don't matter but to their legions of fans numbering in the millions & spanning a few generations now. But this film captures them perfectly, when they were very much an in-the-moment, happening entity, still releasing records of reckoning, really worthy of their moniker, "The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band!"

But even Richards, the group's heart & soul, if not nominal leader, has said that dubbing given the Stones is overused, that on any given night the world's best rock & roll band is a different group; maybe that garage outfit playing their hottest set at some roadside shack in the boondocks is, on that night, the "world's greatest" rock act. For that humble admission alone, seeing this filmed recording of The Rolling Stones at the peak of their powers is an investment of time well worth spent!